Legal “Big Bang”
Date: 21 September 2011
Issue: Vol 161, Issue 7482
Categories: News
Speaking to a legal and business audience at a City UK event last week, Clarke said: “Law as an industry has sometimes felt itself to be overlooked in its treatment by government—certainly relative to financial services.
“So I want to make it clear that for this government, the City of London is a legal centre—not just a financial one…Time will tell, but I hope that comparisons with the Big Bang in 1986 do not prove entirely fanciful.”
Clarke said he was “prepared to wear out much shoe leather promoting the UK as lawyer and adviser to the world, particularly in areas where protectionist regulations remain an impediment”.
The Ministry of Justice is currently pushing a number of initiatives to boost the UK’s legal services, which are worth an estimated £23bn per year. These include: increased competition in the legal services sector through the introduction of ABS; an “action plan” to help UK expansion into new legal markets overseas including in South East Asia, Brazil, Turkey and India; and the new Rolls Building, due to open in December, which will house the commercial court and the technology and construction court.
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